Car Hire again folks

Hi just to share an experience----just got clobbered for being too trusting.

An e mail appeared in my in box to purchase insurance for tyres windscreen ect at 10:50e from Economy car hire.com--good idea takes away some of the bill when collecting the car-----oh how wrong can one be---

Collecting the car from Centauro in Murcia -------they will not recognise this---so exact a futher 28e for exactly the same reason ---if you do not take this insurance from them then 300e deposit will do nicely!!!!

So why did I spend the 10.50e???--the answer from Economy car hire is that ----it was OPTIONAL--another prifit making gimmick , but not obvious until caught out.

Perhaps that is why Goldcar's queue had about 200 people in it and Centauro had 4!!

Hope this helps others in this day and age where pennies need to be looked after.

The 300 euros is not taken as a deposit, that amount is just reserved against your credit. The reserve is removed within a few days of returning the car undamaged. Any damage to tyres and windows is paid by you and reclaimed from Economy. Goldcar are often marginally cheaper but usually apply considerable pressure to buy their add on insurance. I and many I know will not use them. Trouble with car hire is we all have different experiences often depending on the staff on duty. Touch wood as I'm picking up a car from Centauro tomorrow!

The problem here is that if you take an insurance policy to cover tyres, glass etc which is not covered by the fully inclusive insurance that the hire company advertises, you actually need to buy the additional insurance from the hire company itself. Fully inclusive does not mean fully inclusive in Spain.

If you buy additional cover from a broker then you may have to make the security transaction as required by the hire company, AND if you do have a situation that involves such damage you have to pay the hire for it THEN make a seperate insurancce claim.

Buy additional cover from a hire company and they will process the claim on yur behalf. Hopefully, this is what a rep from Goldcar told me.

So my recommendation is to take the fullest insurances cover available from the hire company, not additional cover from a third party broker. Beware, you may find that you thinking you are dealing with a hire company but it is actually a broker. There are misleading web sites out there! See my other posts!